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en101dyslexiaadovocates · 7 years

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A Parent’s Frustration Should Be All of Our Frustration

The advocacy for students with learning disabilities has been a fight from the parent’s of these unique individuals for decades. Public school education has been a fundamental right of the youth for enlightenment and a smooth pavement for intentions of furthering their education. Although there has been bills and laws to ensure the lack of discrimination of these individuals it has been evident that there is still a lack of resources for children with learning disabilities. “For many families, this lack of structured options for schooled children… fostered the belief that children with disabilities could not learn,” a fragmented quote from Gelser who outlines the flaws of Special Education (Gelser).

Decoding-Dyslexia Michigan is an advocacy group to empower families as they support their children with dyslexia, and other learning disabilities, in the public school setting (Decoding Dyslexia). A meeting with them reiterated just how important the knowledge of the best ways to interfere with reading disabilities in the school setting will set children up for success. Although, public schools are ran on a state level, which means that all states make their own curriculum, further research and comments from educators inform that curriculum is truly in the eyes of the school board. Whether it be the budget that shapes the choices or straight down to the resources available, students are objectified into categories based on their responses to state mandated tests.

A main concern for parents of these students who struggle with reading disabilities is the new policy that will come into play for the next school year, 2018-2019. The Third Grade Reading Law, Public Act 306, was passed in the fall of 2016. This new effort to increase reading proficiency will affect students who struggle with the core curriculum. When kindergarteners first enter the school year, it is the job of educators to assess them within the first thirty days of instruction. This will serve as their base line of data. It is then necessary for two other tests to follow within the year to show growth or lack thereof. There is a push for educators to be more aware of reading growth early on. If there is a deficiency noticed it is the correspondence of teachers and parents that will shape the student’s time spent at school from there on out.

At first it seems logical for more tests to be given to try to see a pattern in growth or lack thereof. However, it isn’t until the third grade that the state will become involved with the new bill. When third grade state mandated tests are given, via computer tests, results are sent to the state and sent back to the parents directly. If the student isn’t to grade level, there will be a letter of retention sent back. Indicating that the student isn’t to grade level and will be held back for extra help for reading comprehension. Although there are loopholes for students to not be retained, that would be up to the district to provide evidence of proficiency for their students.

In a perfect world, the kindergartener that is struggling with reading, the parents’ would be contacted right away and informed of ways to help their child at home. However, not everyone is like my Aunt Kim. A student’s only escape from home life could be their school day and their parents could be the least involved with their education. Letter’s could sit on their dinner table of resources available and the child would move along with their peers by the air underneath their shoes. But, once they reach third grade a letter would be sent informing them of their retention. Although previous steps were taken to prevent this, they would have to follow state regulations. Now that they were caught so late in their development, it’s hard to say if their reading fluency would increase, if there was an underlying issue such as a reading disability. The public school system isn’t mandating assessments to identify these struggles. Instead it seems to be a formality by the state to cover their bases of student’s reading progression.

Keegan a successful, novel reading, short story writer, and legoland builder was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD in the third grade. His learning disabilities however were not a suggestion of educators but of his mother who noticed he did well in all other areas but struggled with words. She reached outside of the school district to an out of pocket facility that unbiasedly screened her son for any learning disabilities. Once established he did have dyslexia, she then found another out of pocket facility that would ensure a program to help him find his niche and tutor him to be reading at his grade level.

Orton-Gillingham was a favorite of both educators and parents in attendance of the dyslexia group. This learning approach is good for all students, whether they have a disability or not. However, only few public schools use this teaching style. It isn’t difficult, it is just different then the system already in place. The replacement of what has always been done is seen as a cost and a maintenance issue. Educators that have been teaching the same curriculum for decades would have to relearn a new style. Although, as seen from the schools that do use this approach, it would eliminate intervention for struggling students. However on a large scale, it would be an inconvenience for the resources put into the already established system.

When you see someone you know struggle with identified disabilities it makes you wonder what would happen if there was earlier intervention that prevented them from struggling. My aunt does have the means for outside tutoring services for two of her four children. Costly, and time consuming the tutoring her second oldest son received has helped him excel in his public school system. My sister, his age as well, also may have an underlying learning disability that hinders her learning experience. My family does not have the resources for outside help. We rely solely on what can be provided by the school system. My sister has found her niche as well, although it may have added on some social anxiety on her end. Which reintroduces the idea that special education kids do not belong with their peers. This idea of segregating the different learning styles discriminates on kids with learning disabilities. While the first assessment at the beginning of the year provides a baseline for the student’s data, it also determines where they will spend their time learning. By this, in most public school early education settings, along with core curriculum time there is a block of time spent on either intervention or reward. Some kids who are struggling with the current subject in class will be pulled out along with others to spend time on reading strategies provided by various scholastic textbooks. The students that are progressing on pace will be offered another activity during this time that pertains to what is going on in class. This drastic separation of skill level is noticeable to students in these environments.

Segregation in the school setting is more common than one would like to think. Ideally the extra study time would provide the struggling students with skills to move on pace but it has had a negative effect on the attitudes of school-aged children. More than once, there has been comments from Keegan and my sister alike of how they feel in trouble or different because they don’t stay in class with the rest of their peers. Although it is assuring the school is working to help students progress, the means of doing it effect esteem and aren’t having the results students, teachers, or parents want. The lack of resources for accurate diagnostic tests for elementary students effects their development. If there is an underlying issue due to attention or simply a learning disability then the extra time spent of class is wasted without the correct intervention. The tutoring available to struggling students isn’t meeting their needs but isn’t recorded correctly leading State and Federal alike to not see anything wrong with the system in place. The frequency of student’s with undiagnosed disabilities correlates to failure later on.

Decoding Dyslexia uses the statistics to put into picture how common learning disabilities are. 1 in 5 are said to have some type of dyslexia. That would be an average of 5 per public school classroom. Five students are either struggling with something that they can’t detect or will be notified not until third grade that they are below grade level readers. While in attendance of the meeting, it was a very common theme for the parents of children to have more than one child with dyslexia. It was also overwhelming how many of them said if it weren’t for outside resources they feared their child would’ve given up on their education. The founder of the West Michigan Decoding Dyslexia, was also a parent of her: now successful business owning son with dyslexia, and agreed that there isn’t help within public school systems for all students. Zeeland Public Schools director of curriculum and director of special education were both in attendance of the meeting. They were the keynote speakers of the evening and shared their successes of implementing a new all inclusive Phonic Now curriculum. Their change over to the new system showed drastic change in reading level. The room filled with questions and how to introduce this curriculum to the school districts their children attended.

While these two women shared the journey and hardship their district faced to implement this new system, it was obvious the desperate nature of the women in the room who also wanted to see this change in the districts their children attend. It was also frustrating to my aunt who sat beside me who drilled them with the question, “So are you a pilot district for this? Are you going to press it for all districts?” With their responses you could tell my aunt was less than satisfied. It is evident that it is too much of a bother to fight on the state level for all public schools to use the same resources. It varies from district to district. The best methods aren’t being used, it’s the most frugal for each district. It seems silly that it depends on what city you live in the type of public education you are going to receive. There is so much variance of curriculum district’s can choose from. There is no homogeneous system in place, yet there is a regulated test that determines the advancement on past third grade. However, within the function of the test, there is also loopholes that may be used at the school district’s discretion.

It is painfully obvious the discrimination put forth towards those who do not meet the standard level of comprehension of other students. To say it is a minority would be unfair because they still make up a part of the general classroom. Until there is a way to detect attention deficiencies and learning disabilities on a regulated level then it seems unfair to compare students to state mandated tests. The objectivity the state’s put on the public school system seems aggressive to those who fall below the average. Resources aren’t available to all children regardless of the district they live in. The place you are raised shouldn’t determine the type of education you will receive. If the State wants to compare their school systems to each other there should be less variables. The funding should be served equally to provide the best curriculum for all students to progress naturally and exponentially. Although it is good to hear there are schools such as Zeeland Public schools who can afford to revamp their curriculum and see the growth they reported on the evening I spend with Decoding Dyslexia, it is also heart wrenching to think that other students won’t experience that commitment and entitlement Zeeland was able to give their students. It makes me hope that those ladies will move forward and have the support to implement more public schools to jump on revamping their curriculum to be inclusive to all students.

It brings a lot of peace of mind that my aunt was able to reach outside of her community to find relatable resources to help her work through her son’s struggles with the public school system. Since Keegan was able to identify his difficulties with words, he has flourished with tutoring support and practice. She attends these meetings monthly and is subscribed to their Facebook page. Aside from Decoding Dyslexia she thanks Brains for their support and hopes more people will be aware of the commonness of reading disabilities and the importance of identifying them to then deal with them.

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